several Japanese anime and manga creators donating sketches to support the victims of this week’s flooding in Taiwan. The death

toll could top 500 in the country’s worst flooding in 50 years. Author Kei Sazane (Tasogareiro no Uta Tsukai) is among 20 other

Japanese creators who are contributing to the cause. Takada personally initiated the donation effort; she also contributed to a

similar 1999 relief effort during Taiwan’s worst earthquake in modern times.

Story 7: [Baka to Test to Shōkanjū Anime Promo Streamed]

The Japanese production company Media Factory has begun streaming a two-minute promotional video for the anime adaptation of Kenji Inoue‘s Baka to Test to Shōkanjū (The Idiot, the Tests, and the Summoned Creatures) fantasy romantic comedy light novels on Thursday. The story centers around Akihisa Yoshii, the “baka” of the title. His academy rigidly divides up the student body into classes based on the results of tests. The prodigies are in the A class with reclining seats complete with air conditioning, but Akihisa is in F class, the lowest rung of the school ladder which is furnished only with low, decrepit tables and worn-out straw tatami mats.

A smart girl named Mizuki Himeji had a fever on test day and was pigeonholed into the F class. Besides Mizuki, the F class also has Yūji Sakamoto, the class president who has been Akihisa’s partner-in-crime since the freshman year. The school happens to have developed experiments to summon fantasy creatures, and Akihisa decides to rally F class to take on the higher-tiered classes and seize their perks. The F class uses the summoned creatures in an all-out battle for school supremacy.

The anime was revealed through an ad for Kadokawa Shoten‘s Monthly Shonen Ace magazine in April. Monthly Shonen Ace runs the manga adaptation of the novel series, which Enterbrain has been publishing since 2007.

Story 8:[Kanokon ~Manatsu no Daishanikusai~ OVA Trailer Uploaded]

The Japanese production company Media Factory has begun streaming the 113-second trailer for the Kanokon ~Manatsu no

Daishanikusai~ original video anime project. Both the new video project and last year’s Kanokon television series adapt Katsumi

Nishino and Koin’s Kanokon romantic comedy light novels about an ordinary boy with two female schoolmates — who happen to be

fox and wolf deities. As he did on the television series, Atsushi Ootsuki will direct the animators at Xebec on the new project. Series

script supervisor Masashi Suzuki, character designer and animation director Akio Takami, and the cast led by Mamiko Noto, Ayako

Kawasumi, and Miyū Takeuchi will also return. Yui Sakakibara sings the opening theme song “Komorebi no Sordino.”

Seven Seas Entertainment had announced in 2006 that it would be translating the original light novel series into English, although

the company has since said in April that it currently has no plans to put them out.